Center for Hellenic Studies

(previous years)
 

Maria Conterno holds a Ph.D. in Byzantine History and Civilization, Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence, and a Diploma in Greek Paleography, Vatican School of Paleography, Diplomatics and Archives Administration.  She works primarily on interactions between Greek and Syriac culture in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium.  She is now publishing (in Italian translation) the Syriac version of Themistius’ oration Perì Philìas, along with other two of his speeches,  which came down to us respectively in Syriac and Arabic. Her doctoral dissertation, which is being turned into a monograph, focuses on the question of the Oriental sources of Theophanes the Confessor’s Chronographia, proposing a substantial revision of the theory of the so-called ‘Circuit of Theophilus of Edessa’ which is the commonly accepted explanation of the similarities of the Chronographia with some later Syriac chronicles. She is currently doing further research on the Syriac sources related to the Monoenergetic-Monotheletic dispute. Both this new project and the previous one are part of a wider research plan aimed at investigating the survival of Greek culture and literature, and the mutual influences with the Syriac ones, in the Eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire immediately before, during and after Arab conquests

Merih Erol received her B.S. in Electric and Electronics Engineering, her M.A. in Sociology and her Ph.D. (2009) in History from Bogazici University, Istanbul. Her dissertation on “Cultural Identifications of the Greek Orthodox Elite of Constantinople: Discourse on Music in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries” investigated the relationships between musical discourse, identity formation, and the politics of power in the Greek Orthodox community of Constantinople in the nineteenth century. As a post-doctoral research fellow (2010-11) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Program for the History of Emotions, she expanded her research interests into the social and cultural study of religion, and particularly into the study of religious ethics. She now embarks on a new research project in which she attempts to examine the formation of pious and ethical “subjects” in nineteenth century Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Her project will explore issues of belief, discourses on religious experience and emotions, and controversies over worship practices within the Greek Orthodox populations.

Konstantinos Kalantzis studied History and Archaeology at the University of Crete and Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford (M.Sc.) and University College London (Ph.D., 2010). His doctoral thesis entitled "Visualising Identity on the Margins of Europe: Photography and the Geographies of Imagination in Sphakia, Crete" focused on the Sphakia region of highland western Crete and approached questions of power and imagination through a study of the visual as a primary field of social engagement, struggle and experience. Since 2008 he also works as an ethnographer in two projects that involve archaeological surveys/excavations in the island of Therasia and the village of Neo Monastiri in mainland Greece. These projects explore local notions of history and place, indigenous archaeological practices, landscape and social aesthetics. His main research interests include: aesthetics and ideology, landscape, postcolonial and critical theory, visual and material culture.

Georgia Mavrodi graduated in International Relations and Political Studies from the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki. She holds a Master of Arts in European Studies from the University of Bath and the Humboldt University of Berlin; and a Master of Research in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence, where she also earned her Ph.D. in Political Science (2010). Her doctoral research focused on the Europeanisation processes in the new countries of immigration in the EU with a special emphasis on Greece. Georgia Mavrodi specializes in European integration, Europeanisation, and comparative immigration and refugee policies. Her publications include articles in international referred journals and chapters in edited volumes. She has taught at the James Madison University MA Program on European Union Policy Studies (2009-11) and at the University of Siegen (2011). She has also been a researcher at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (2010-11).

Kostas Tampakis holds a B.A. in Physics (2002) and a M.A. in Science Education (2004), both from the University of Athens. His doctoral dissertation (University of Athens, 2008) focused on the history of science education in nineteenth century Greece. Kostas Tampakis has been a Visiting Scholar in the History and Philosophy Department (2009-10), University of Cambridge, and a Research Associate at Darwin College (2009-10). He has been awarded scholarships from the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, and from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation. He is currently working on the discourses and practices of the scientific community within the early Modern Greek cultural sphere.

Alexis Torrance (D.Phil., Theology, University of Oxford) did his doctoral work on the concept of repentance in Christian late antiquity, with special reference to ascetic theology from the fifth to seventh centuries. During academic year 2010-11, he was a Residential Fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He has researched and published on diverse aspects of patristic, Byzantine, and modern Orthodox theology, including articles on the letters of Barsanuphius and John, precedents for the theology of Gregory Palamas in the Cappadocian Fathers, and modern Orthodox personalism. He is currently co-editing a collection entitled Individuality in Late Antiquity for Ashgate Press, and his first book, Repentance in Late Antiquity: Framing the Christian Life in the Early Church, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

Post-Doctoral Fellows 2010-2011
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2009-2010
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2008-2009
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2007-2008
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2006-2007
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2005-2006
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2004-2005
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2003-2004
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2002-2003
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2001-2002
Post-Doctoral Fellows 2000-2001
Post-Doctoral Fellows 1992-2000